American Aladdins and Sinbads: A Critical Bibliographic Examination of the Arabian Nights for Antebellum Nationhood

I demonstrate the significance of the Arabian Nights in the American antebellum period. I achieve this goal by documenting, analyzing, and historicizing how the story collection, its component tales, and its imagery were reproduced and repurposed in the print culture of the time to narrativize, legitimize, and familiarize the emergent national American ethos as the United States was transforming socioeconomically, expanding territorially, and advancing industrially.